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A\\E-UNIVER 


NEW  HAVEN  IN  1784. 


A    PAPER 

READ  BEFORE  THE  NEW  HAVEN  COLONY  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY, 
JANUARY  21,  1884, 


FRANKLIN    BOWDITCH    DEXTER. 


0 


NEW    HAVEN    IN    1784. 


ON  the  evening  of  January  21,  1784,  the  President  of  Yale 
College  wrote  in  his  diary :  "  This  afternoon  the  Bill  or  Charter 
of  the  City  of  New  Haven  passed  the  Governor  and  Council, 
and  completes  the  incorporation  of  the  Mayor,  four  Aldermen 
and  twenty  Common  Council."  It  is  fitting  to  recall  on  this 
anniversary  some  characteristics  of  the  New  Haven  of  1784. 

The  town  then  covered  the  territory  now  occupied,  not 
only  by  the  present  town,  but  also  by  West  Haven,  East 
Haven,  North  Haven,  (the  greater  part  of)  Woodbridge,  Ham- 
den,  and  Bethany,  in  all  an  area  of  perhaps  ten  by  thirteen 
miles,  or  from  ten  to  twelve  times  as  extensive  as  now. 

The  inhabitants  were  estimated  at  7,960  souls ;  of  whom 
3,350,  less  than  almost  any  one  of  our  wards  to-day,  were  in 
that  part  which  was  chartered  as  a  city.  There  are  now  within 
the  town-limits  of  1784,  by  a  more  than  tenfold  increase,  some 
87,000  inhabitants,  while  the  city  proper  has  multiplied  more 
than  twentyfold. 

In  the  settled  part  of  the  city  (that  is,  the  original  nine 
squares,  called  "  the  town-plat,"  and  the  south-eastward  exten- 
sion to  the  water,  known  as  "  the  new  township"),  there  were 
some  400  dwellings,  mostly  of  wood,  but  a  good  number  of 
brick,  and  one  or  two  of  stone.  A  nearly  contemporaneous 
map  (1775)  on  our  walls  shows  that  these  dwellings  lay  almost 
wholly  in  the  area  bounded  by  Meadow,  George,  York,  Grove, 


52  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW   HAVEN. 

Olive  and  Water  streets, — the  northern  part  of  this  area  being 
by  far  the  least  fully  inhabited. 

The  streets  were  without  regular  lines  of  trees,  without 
pavements,  sidewalks,  or  names ;  but  it  was  an  awkward  mode 
of  designation  by  localities  identified  with  personal  names  (as 
we  still  speak  of  Cutler  Corner)  ;  and  eight  months  after  the 
charter  was  given,  21  of  the  principal  streets  (Broadway, 
Chapel,  Cherry,  Church,  College,  Court,  Crown,  Elm,  Fair, 
Fleet,  George,  Grove,  High,  Meadow,  Olive,  Orange,  State, 
Temple,  Union,  Water,  and  York)  received  at  a  city  meeting 
their  present  names.  A  few  may  have  been  already  known  by 
these  titles  ;  I  dare  not  affirm  it  of  any  but  College  and  Chapel 
streets,  in  both  which  cases  the  names  were  applied  only  to  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  two  college  buildings  which  occa- 
sioned them.  A  few  more  had  been  known  by  other  names : 
thus,  the  lower  part  of  Church  street  was  called  Market  street, 
from  the  market-house  at  the  open  intersection  of  George  and 
Church  ;  State  street  is  called  on  the  map  of  1775  Queen 
street,  a  designation  which  would  seem  to  go  back  to  distant 
Queen  Anne ;  part  of  George  street  was  long  known  as 
Leather  lane  ;  York  street  was  sometimes  called  West  street, 
and  Grove  street  North  street. 

Of  the  new  names  Church  street  was  suggested  by  the 
Episcopal  Church  which  stood  on  the  east  side  of  that  street,  a 
little  nearer  to  Chapel  than  to  Center  street ;  Temple  street, 
from  the  two  churches  on  the  Green,  in  front  of  which  it  ran  ; 
York  street,  from  the  name  of  the  "  Yorkshire  quarter,"  given 
at  the  very  beginning  to  that  neighborhood  where  some  leading 
immigrants  from  Yorkshire  sat  down ;  Elm  street  from  the 
already  patriarchal  trees  planted  in  1686  in  front  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Pierpont's  dwelling  and  remaining  almost  to  our  day ;  and 
Court  street,  because  it  was  intended  that  it  should  run  across 
the  Green  past  the  Court  House. 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1784.  53 

New  Haven  had  already  been  described  in  print  (Peters' 
History  of  Connecticut)  as  "  the  most  beautiful  town  in  New 
England"  ;  and  one  special  feature  which  contributed  to  this 
impression  was  the  Green,  usually  called  the  market  place, 
because  the  southern  border  was  used  for  this  purpose.  Dr. 
Jedidiah  Morse,  however,  states  in  the  first  edition  of  his 
American  Geography  (1789)  that  "the  beauty  of  the  public 
square  is  greatly  diminished  by  the  burial  ground  and  several 
of  the  public  buildings  which  occupy  a  considerable  part 
of  it," 

Chief  among  these  buildings  was  an  elegant  and  commodi- 
ous brick  State  House  or  County  Court  House,  built  in 
1761-64  by  the  State  and  County  jointly,  and  standing  a  little 
to  the  north  of,  and  much  nearer  Temple  street  man  the 
present  Trinity  church  ;  it  had  both  east  and  west  doors,  fur- 
nished with  stone  steps ;  the  first  floor  was  devoted  to  court 
rooms  and  offices,  and  the  second  to  the  use  of  the  two  houses 
of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  October  sessions,  while  the  third 
floor  was  an  open  hall.  The  judge  of  the  County  Court  was 
Col.  James  Wadsworth,  a  graduate  at  Yale  in  1748,  of  whose 
college  days  an  interesting  reminiscence  is  preserved  in  the 
plan  which  he  drew  of  New  Haven  in  his  senior  year  and 
which  was  engraved  in  1806. 

Next  to  this  building  stood  what  was  still  the  "New 
Brick  "  meeting-house  of  the  First  Church,  built  in  1753-57, 
measuring  about  seventy-five  by  fifty  feet,  and  holding  an  aver- 
age congregation  of  not  much  over  nine  hundred  persons  ;  it 
was  on  the  site  of  the  present  Center  Church,  and  was  arranged 
internally  in  a  corresponding  way,  with  the  pulpit  toward  the 
west,  but  it  was  as  if  the  church  now  standing  were  shifted 
around  sidewise,  the  north  and  south  length  being  the  greatest, 
and  the  bell-tower  at  the  northern  end.  The  minister  was  the 
Rev.  Chauncey  Whittelsey,  now  near  the  end  of  his  life, 


54  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW    HAVEN. 

having  reached  the  age  of  sixty-six,  and  having  been  settled 
for  thirty-six  years. 

The  earliest  secession  or  separation  from  the  common  church 
of  the  whole  town  had  been  the  society  formed  in  consequence 
of  the  Whitefieldian  revival,  and  after  a  long  struggle  finally 
recognized  by  authority  of  the  General  Assembly  in  1759,  and 
dubbed  with  the  unaccountable  name  of  the  White  Haven 
Society.*  Their  wooden  meeting-house,  built  in  1744  and 
much  enlarged  in  1764,  measuring  about  sixty  feet  square,  and 
called  from  its  color  the  Blue  Meeting-house,  stood  on  the 
southeast  corner  of  Elm  and  Church  streets.  The  congregation 
worshiping  there  had  dwindled  from  a  much  larger  number 
than  that  of  the  parent  society,  to  less  than  eight  hundred 
hearers,  under  the  dry  preaching  of  that  acute  metaphysician, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  the  younger,  now  aged  thirty-nine,  and 
for  fifteen  years  their  pastor. 

The  majority  of  those  who  had  left  Mr.  Edwards's  meeting, 
as  much  from  dislike  of  his  extreme  "  New  Divinity  "  views 
as  from  his  dull  preaching,  had  formed  a  new  congregation, 
called  the  Fair  Haven  Society,  now  the  largest  in  town,  or 
about  one  thousand  persons,  who  worshiped  in  a  house  the 
size  of  the  "  New  Brick,"  built  of  wood,  in  1770,  on  the  site 
of  the  present  church  of  the  United  Society.  Their  minister 
was  Mr.  Allyn  Mather,  a  young  man  of  thirty-six,  now  in 
feeble  health,  and  among  the  congregation  was  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Bird,  Mr.  Edwards's  predecessor,  and  Mr.  Mather's 
frequent  substitute  in  the  pulpit ;  both  of  them  died  within 
the  year.  It  is  one  of  the  curious  felicities  of  history  that 
not  only  have  these  two  divergent  offshoots  from  the  old  First 
Church  long  ago  come  together  in  the  United  Society,  but  now 
they  are  preparing  to  absorb  also  another  organization  (the 

*  May  this  name  have  been  given  with  a  covert  reference  to  White- 
field  ? 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1784.  55 

Third  Church)  which  represented  in  its  origin  an  opposite 
extreme'of  theological  belief. 

The  great  majority  of  New  Haven  in  1784  was  thus  of  one 
religious  faith.  But  besides  these  societies  of  the  Congrega- 
tional order  there  was  a  small  Episcopal  society,  not  numbering 
much  over  two  hundred  members,  which  occupied  what  was 
distinctively  known  as  "  The  Church,"  built  in  1754-55,  on 
Church  Street,  with  the  Rev.  Bela  Hubbard  as  rector,  now 
forty-four  years  of  age,  and  having  been  here  for  fourteen 
years ;  this  was  the  smallest  in  size  of  any  of  the  church  build- 
ings mentioned,  somewhat  less  than  sixty  by  forty  feet. 

Besides  the  Episcopalians  there  was  a  handful  of  Sandema- 
nians,  the  most  radical  of  "  New-Light "  sects,  too  much  so  for 
even  Mr.  Edwards  to  tolerate,  who  had  held  separate  services 
for  a  dozen  years  or  more  ;  for  a  time  they  had  had  two  elders 
or  ministers  in  charge  of  their  simple  worship,  but  these 
leaders  had  sympathized  (as  did  others  of  the  flock)  too  plainly 
with  Tory  principles  to  remain  here  in  the  Revolution  ;  and 
the  remnant  that  was  left  had  dwindled  into  insignificance. 
There  were  also  one  or  two  Jewish  families,  the  first  of  which 
appeared  here  in  1772. 

I  have  mentioned  the  chief  buildings  on  the  Green. 
There  was,  besfdes,  a  wooden  jail,  on  College  Street,  built  in 
1735,  with  Stephen  Munson,  a  college  graduate,  for  jailor  ;  but 
this  dilapidated  structure  was  replaced,  late  in  the  year  1784, 
by  a  new  jail,  built  just  across  the  street,  under  the  eaves  of 
the  college.  Adjacent  to  the  jail  on  the  south  was  the  old 
County  Court  House,  the  upper  floor  of  which  had  been  used  also 
as  a  State  House  for  many  years  before  the  new  one  was  built ; 
in  this  building,  or  in  a  separate  building  near  it,  the  Hopkins 
Grammar  School,  which  was  now  in  a  very  low  condition,  was 
kept  by  Mr.  Richard  Woodhull,  a  middle-aged  man,  of  compe- 
tent learning,  whose  career  as  a  college  tutor  had  been  inter- 


56  CENTENNIAL   OF  NEW   HAVEN. 

rupted  many  years  before  by  his  conversion  to  Sandemanian- 
ism,  and  whose  attitude  in  the  Revolution  as  a  non-resistant  and 
loyalist  had  interfered  still  further  with  his  prospects.  Besides 
this,  there  was  a  brick  school-house  on  the  Elm  street  side  of 
the  Green,  north  of  and  older  than  the  Fair  Haven  meeting- 
house, and  here  youth  of  both  sexes  were  taught. 

Occupying  a  good  part  of  the  upper  Green,  which  then 
sloped  much  more  than  now  from  west  to  east,  on  the  sides 
and  at  the  back  of  the  Brick  meeting-house,  was  the 
ancient  burial-ground,  of  irregular  shape,  which  had  lately 
been  inclosed  by  a  rough  board  fence.  This  was,  I  suppose, 
the  only  fence  on  or  about  the  whole  Green,  the  rest  being 
entirely  open  to  the  surrounding  streets,  and  the  more  level 
lower  Green  especially  being  a  common  thoroughfare  for  all 
sorts  of  travel. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  button  wood  and  elm  trees,  set  out 
in  1759  around  the  Green,  were  now  half  grown ;  of  these  I 
take  it  that  the  solitary  buttonwood,  still  standing  opposite  the 
First  Methodist  Church,  is  a  survivor  ;  the  veteran  elm  at  the 
southeast  corner  of  the  Green  may  be  older,  and  a  few  others 
of  our  oldest  elms  may  be  relics  of  this  planting.  On  the  Green 
itself  no  trees  were  standing ;  but  a  single  row  of  elms  was 
placed,  a  year  or  two  later,  on  the  line  of  Temple  street,  in 
front  of  the  State  House  and  the  churches. 

Next  in  interest  to  the  Green  was  the  College  which 
fronted  upon  it.  The  building  originally  named  Yale  College, 
which  had  stood  in  the  front  corner  of  the  yard,  had  recently 
been  torn  down ;  and  the  three  buildings  which  in  1784  repre- 
sented the  College  are  all  now  standing,  though  greatly  trans- 
formed. The  oldest,  Connecticut  Hall,  or  South  Middle,  built 
in  1750-51,  instead  of  being  the  four-storied  structure  which  it 
is  to-day,  had  but  three  stories  with  a  gambrel  roof,  and  lodged 
about  one-third  of  the  students ;  what  is  now  the  Athenseum, 


NEW   HAVEN    IN    1784.  57 

built  in  1761-63,  was  of  three  stories,  with  steeple  and  bell, 
and  contained  the  chapel,  library,  and  apparatus-room  ;  and  in 
the  rear  was  the  new  dining-hall,  built  in  1782,  later  the 
chemical  laboratory.  Besides  these  there  were  the  President's 
house,  built  of  wood  in  1722,  and  an  elegant  mansion  for  that 
date,  standing  a  little  north  of  the  present  College  street 
Church ;  and  the  Professor  of  Divinity's  house,  also  belonging 
to  the  College,  on  York  street,  on  the  ground  now  appro- 
priated to  the  Medical  School. 

The  President  was  Dr.  Ezra  Stiles,  one  of  the  most  learned 
Americans  of  his  generation,  now  56  years  of  age,  having  been 
six  years  in  office ;  while  the  Professor  of  Divinity,  or  College 
pastor,  and  at  the  same  time  lecturer  on  theological  topics,  was 
the  Rev,  Samuel  Wales,  a  young  man  of  36,  installed  only  two 
years  before,  and  now  at  the  height  of  his  usefulness,  his 
remarkable  power  as  a  preacher  as  yet  unaffected  by  the 
insidious  disease  which  soon  ended  his  career. 

There  were  enrolled  as  students  during  the  current  term 
(Nov.  12-Jan.  13),  the  first  term  of  the  College  year,  260 
undergraduates,  twenty-five  per  cent,  more  than  in  any  other 
American  college ;  but  the  great  irregularity  of  attendance 
which  was  then  common  reduced  the  number  actually  present 
to  less  than  225.  The  Junior  class  was  instructed  by  Tutor 
Josiah  Meigs,  and  the  Sophomores  by  Tutor  Matthew  Talcott 
Russell,  while  the  Freshman  class  was  so  unusually  large  as  to 
be  divided  under  the  care  of  the  two  youngest  tutors, 
Simeon  Baldwin  and  Henry  Channing.  The  other  officers 
were,  James  Hillhouse,  a  young  lawyer,  treasurer,  and  Jere- 
miah At  water,  steward. 

I  have  thus  named  all  that  can  be  called  public  buildings  in 
the  town  ;  certainly  there  was  no  bank, — that  luxury  did  not 
come  till  1792 ;  no  post-office, — the  infrequent  mails  were 
handled  in  a  corner  of  a  small  country-store ;  no  almshouse, — 

8 


58  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW   HAVEN. 

for  was  it  not  voted,  at  the  town-meeting  in  March,  1783, 
"  That  the  selectmen  vendue  [that  is,  farm  out  at  auction]  the 
poor  of  the  town  which  are  now  supported  by  the  town  so  that 
they  may  be  supported  in  the  cheapest  manner ;"  no  hospital, 
except  the  town  pest-house  on  Grapevine  Point,  for  t^e  inocu- 
lation and  treatment  of  small-pox,  then  so  formidable  ;  and  no 
public  library,  though  this  is  less  a  wonder,  since  it  is  also  true 
of  New  Haven  in  1884. 

Turning  to  the  classes  which  made  up  society,  besides  the 
professional  men  already  mentioned,  there  were  eight  or  nine 
lawyers  in  active  practice  ;  but  the  very  recent  growth  of  that 
profession  in  importance  and  public  favor,  and  the  losses  it  had 
suffered  through  loyalty  to  the  British  crown,  are  shown  by 
the  fact  that  the  senior  member  of  the  bar  was  Charles 
Chauncey,  only  thirty-six  years  of  age,  while  the  leader  of  the 
profession  in  brilliancy  was  Pierpont  Edwards,  two  years 
younger,  whose  annual  income  of  $2000  was  said  a  little  later 
to  be  the  largest  earned  by  any  lawyer  in  the  State. 

The  medical  profession  had  also  eight  or  nine  representa- 
tives in  what  became  the  city, — the  leading  physician,  alike  in 
reputed  skill  and  in  social  status,  being  Dr.  Leverett  Hubbard, 
President  of  the  County  Medical  Society  which  was  founded 
this  same  month,  who  lived  in  his  new  stone  dwelling  still 
standing  at  the  junction  of  George  and  Meadow  streets.  Dr. 
John  Spalding,  after  his  removal  here  in  the  spring  of  1784, 
was  considered  the  leading  surgeon. 

As  for  the  business  of  the  city,  there  was  the  usual  provision 
for  domestic  trading  common  to  a  place  of  this  size.  A  statis- 
tical enumeration  gives  fifty-six  shops,  half  a  dozen  of  which 
carried  from  two  to  three  thousand  pounds  (sterling)  worth  of 
goods,  and  the  rest  from  £500  to  £150  worth.  "What  after- 
wards became  the  leading  retail  house  of  Broome  &  Platt  was 
not  removed  here  from  New  York  till  September,  1784 ; 


NEW   HAVEN    IN    1784.  59 

Shipman,  Drake,  Howell,  Perit,  Helms,  Austin,  are  among  the 
other  leading  names.  There  were  no  local  manufactures, — the 
long  course  of  British  rule  had  thoroughly  stamped  out  every- 
thing of  that  sort ;  the  utmost  that  was  done  was  the  ordinary 
spinning  and  weaving  for  domestic  use,  and  a  little  ironwork- 
ing  and  papermaking. 

In  one  direction,  however,  there  was  activity.  New  Haven, 
in  fulfillment  of  the  dream  of  its  founders  and  of  all  the  early 
generations,  was  already  of  importance  as  a  sea-port ;  it  had  in 
operation  extensive  oyster-fisheries;  it  had  its  Union  Wharf 
and  Long  Wharf,  though  not  so  long  as  now  ;  already,  since 
the  announcement  of  peace,  vessels  had  begun  to  sail  direct 
for  England  and  Ireland,  though  the  main  stay  was  commerce 
with  the  West  Indies,  so  far  as  they  were  open  to  us,  in  the 
export,  of  horses,  oxen,  pork,  beef,  and  lumber,  with  return 
cargoes  of  sugar  and  molasses.  In  1784  thirty-six  American 
vessels,  with  one  British  ship  and  one  Danish,  are  recorded  as 
entering  this  port,  while  thirty-three  sea-going  vessels  were 
owned  here,  all  engaged  in  foreign  and  West-India  trade,  as 
against  forty  that  were  owned  just  before  the  war  began  in 
1775 ;  at  the  close  of  warlike  operations  in  1781,  this  number 
had  dwindled  to  one  solitary  vessel,  so  that  the  return  of  pros- 
perity had  been  rapid  in  this  branch  ;  most  of  those  now  owned 
were  built  here  or  in  the  immediate  neighborhood.  There  was 
at  least  one  line  of  packets  carrying  both  passengers  and 
freight  to  New  York  weekly  during  the  open  season ;  and 
another  weekly  line  running  to  New  London  and  Norwich. 
The  collector  of  customs  for  the  United  States  Government 
was  Jonathan  Fitch,  a  son  of  Governor  Fitch,  of  Norwalk, 
and  a  Yale  graduate,  who  had  married  early  a  step-daughter  of 
President  Clap  and  had  served  for  a  generation  before  the  war 
as  steward  of  the  college. 

The  central  government  was  also  represented  by  the  post- 


60  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW   HAVEN. 

master,  Ellas  Beers,  whose  office  was  next  the  store  of  his  elder 
brother,  Isaac  Beers,  on  the  College  street  side  of  the  corner 
now  occupied  by  the  New  Haven  House.  Post-riders  took 
letters  twice  (or  in  severe  weather,  once)  a  week  to  New  York, 
doing  a  large  commission  business,  to  the  benefit  of  their  own 
pockets,  by  the  way.  The  return  mails  from  New  York 
divided  at  New  Haven,  one  going  each  week  via  New  London 
and  Providence  to  Boston,  the  other  taking  the  inland  route 
to  the  same  destination  by  Hartford  and  Springfield,  and  by 
each  route  there  was  a  return  mail  weekly  ;  the  branching  of 
the  post-routes  at  this  point  into  two  eastward  routes,  as  to  this 
day  of  the  railroads,  is  of  course  a  reminder  of  the  historical 
position  of  New  Haven  as  the  first  settlement  on  the  direct 
road  between  New  York  and  Boston,  and  thus  from  the  first 
the  point  to  which  all  travel  for  New  York  from  the  eastward 
converged. 

A  stage  for  Hartford  and  Springfield  left  here  every  Wed- 
nesday ;  and  another  left  on  Saturday,  which  connected  at 
Hartford  with  one  leaving  for  Boston  on  Monday  morning, 
which  going  by  the  most  direct  route  (Somers,  Brookfield,  and 
Worcester)  did  not  reach  the  journey's  end  until  Thursday 
evening ;  the  post-riders,  however,  moved  more  rapidly  than 
this. 

The  New  Haven  post-office  was  the  receiving-office  for  all 
the  inland  region  not  served  by  the  Hartford,  New  York,  and 
New  London  offices ;  thus,  not  only  all  letters  for  such  near 
points  as  Cheshire,  Wallingford,  and  Waterbury,  but  all  for 
towns  as  far  off  as  Litchfield  and  New  Milford  were  left  here, 
to  be  delivered  to  any  one  bound  for  those  parts ;  if  not  soon 
called  for,  they  were  advertised  in  the  New  Haven  newspaper, 
and  after  three  months  from  that  date,  were  sent  to  the  Dead 
Letter  department  of  the  General  post-office  at  Philadelphia, 
which  was  in  charge  of  Ebenezer  Hazard,  Postmaster-General. 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1T84.  61 

The  post-office  adjoined  Isaac  Beers's  store ;  and  this  in- 
troduces us  to  what  was,  after  the  College,  the  intellectual 
center  (in  a  sense)  of  New  Haven.  The  store  was  a  part  of 
the  proprietor's  house,  which  was  also  an  inn,  and  he  sold — be- 
sides books — general  groceries,  and  the  best  of  gin  and  brandy. 
Of  books  he  was,  I  think,  one  of  the  largest  direct  importers 
in  the  United  States ;  and  very  remarkable  are  the  lists  of  his 
latest  acquisitions  which  he  publishes  now  and  then  in  the 
weekly  newspaper,  covering  sometimes  an  entire  page. 

Besides  this,  there  was  at  least  one  other  general  book- 
store, of  less  pretensions,  that  of  Daggett  and  Fitch ;  and  one 
specially  devoted  to  school-books,  kept  by  Abel  Morse,  the 
teacher  of  a  select  school  for  girls;  Goodrich  and  Darling, 
druggists,  also  dealt  in  books.  The  office  of  Thomas  and 
Samuel  Green,  who  printed  the  newspaper  and  such  pam- 
phlets as  the  divines  and  politicians  of  the  neighborhood 
furnished  for  publication,  was  over  Elias  Shipman's  store, 
which  was  directly  opposite  the  post-office,  on  College  and 
Chapel  streets,  the  site  of  Townsend's  Block ;  but  they,  I  sup- 
pose, sold  little  but  their  own  publications. 

The  newspaper  was  the  Connecticut  Journal,  begun  by  the 
same  publishers  in  1767,  and  continuing  under  various  propri- 
etors until  18#5.  .  It  appeared  every  Wednesday  on  a  sheet  of 
four  pages,  about  fourteen  by  nine  or  ten  inches  in  size,  and 
was  poorly  edited,  even  for  that  day ;  so  that  we  may  not 
wonder  that  an  early  evidence  of  progress  in  the  new  city 
should  have  been  the  establishment,  in  May,  1784,  of  a  second 
paper,  the  Xew  Haven  Gazette,  price  eight  shillings  a  year,  to 
edit  which  Josiah  Meigs  resigned  his  College  tutorship. 

In  connection  with  the  local  publishing  business  may  be 
mentioned  the  name  of  Abel  Buell,  the  ingenious  mechanic, — 
at  various  times  in  his  life,  engraver,  type-founder,  coiner,  and 
goldsmith, — who  advertises  in  March,  1784,  a  map  of  the 


62  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW    HAVEN. 

United  States,  the  first  ever  compiled,  engraved,  and  finished 
by  one  hand ;  and  also  the  name  of  Amos  Doolittie,  the 
earliest  copper-plate  engraver  in  America,  whose  shop  for 
sign-painting  and  the  higher  branches  of  his  art  was  on  the 
present  College  square,  fronting  the  Green. 

Passing  to  the  political  and  social  condition  of  the  city,  we 
are  to  remember  that  the  whole  country  had  just  come  out  of 
an  exhausting  war ;  and  New  Haven  had  suffered  her  full 
share,  much  beyond  the  most  of  New  England.  A  sermon 
just  preached  by  the  Rev.  Benjamin  Trumbull,  of  North 
Haven,  at  the  celebration  on  the  news  of  the  Definitive  Treaty 
of  Peace,  estimates  the  loss  of  New  Haven  in  soldiers  and 
seamen  on  the  American  side  during  the  war  at  210 ;  and  the 
loss  of  property  by  the  raid  of  the  British  troops  on  this  town 
was  reckoned  at  over  £30,800,  in  a  depreciated  currency. 

But  peace  was  now  secured,  and  the  general  sentiment 
among  the  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  town  was  hopeful  of 
brighter  days  than  ever ;  although  the  town  taxes  were  four- 
pence  on  the  pound,  or  nearly  two  cents  on  the  dollar,  double 
the  usual  rate  before  the  war,  and  this  high,  figure  was  supple- 
mented moreover  by  state  taxes  of  three  shillings  and  twopence 
(sixteen  cents  on  the  dollar). 

The  fullest  picture  of  our  modern  daily  life  is  the  news- 
paper ;  but  for  1784  The  Con-necticut  Journal  is  a  poor  help. 
It  is  guiltless  of  anything  so  direct  as  an  editorial,  and  almost 
equally  guiltless  of  contributions  from  correspondents ;  the 
local  editor  and  the  interviewer  are  alike  unknown.  In  other 
words,  the  entire  paper  is  made  up  of  selections  from  other 
sheets,  of  foreign  news  (usually  about  ten  weeks  old),  of  very 
scanty  items  from  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston,  and  a  few 
other  prominent  places,  and  of  advertisements.  The  selections 
bear  largely  at  this  date  on  the  novel  situation  of  the  United 
States,  just  formally  acknowledged  as  independent.  They 


NEW    HAVEN    IN   1784.  (53 

feed  the  popular  interest  in  subjects  which  we  know  were 
under  discussion  elsewhere, — such  as,  preeminently,  the 
approval  or  non-approval  of  the  so-called  Commutation  Bill, 
recently  passed  by  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation,  for  com- 
muting the  half-pay  for  life,  previously  voted  to  Kevolutionary 
officers  and  soldiers,  into  five  years'  full  pay  in  one  gross  sum ; 
the  change  was  really  a  shrewd  piece  of  economy  for  the  gov- 
ernment, and  yet  was  most  unpopular,  especially  in  New 
England ;  a  convention  met  at  Middletown,  in  December, 

1783,  to  record  Connecticut's  dissent  from  such  a  creation  of  a 
moneyed  aristocracy. 

Another  timely  subject,  of  far-reaching  consequences,  was 
the  question  of  giving  Congress  the  right  to  levy  moderate 
import  duties  on  specified  articles,  for  meeting  the  interest  on 
the  public  debt;  the  principle  of  Federal  government  was 
involved  ;  approval  of  the  impost  meant  adhesion  to  the  theory 
of  a  strong  central  government  as  necessary,  while  disapproval 
was  a  preference  for  the  existing  Confederation,  already  on  its 
downward  career  to  powerlessness  and  contempt. 

In  these  twin  disputes,  the  Connecticut  Legislature  com^ 
mitted  itself  to  the  policy  of  narrowness  and  conservatism  by 
resolving  in  1783  that  the  requisitions*  of  Congress  were  not 
valid  until  after  the  approval  of  the  State ;  and  in  January, 

1784,  they  voted  down  (69  to  37)  the  impost  recommended  by 
Congress,   the   New   Haven  representative    voting   with   the 
majority.     At  the  next  election,  however,  the  people  repudia- 
ted the  action  of  their  deputies ;  and  Pierpont  Edwards  and 
James  Hillhouse,  of  New  Haven,  concurred  with  the  great 
majority  of  the  new  General  Assembly  in  granting  Congress 
the  desired  authority  to  raise  this  slender  revenue. 

The  current  advertisements  show  the  great  confusion  of 
the  time  in  respect  to  financial  standards.  Goods  are  on  sale 
for  cash,  for  bank  notes,  for  Morris's  notes,  Mr.  Hillegas'  notes, 


64  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW   HAVEN. 

Pickering's  certificates,  soldiers'  notes,  State  money,  all  kinds 
of  lumber,  grain,  oxen,  cows,  potash,  country  produce,  etc., 
etc.  Bank  notes  were  the  issues  of  the  bank  at  Philadelphia, 
the  only  institution  of  the  kind  in  the  Union ;  Morris's  notes 
were  the  issues  of  treasury-notes  by  Robert  Morris,  superinten- 
dent of  finance  of  the  United  States;  Hillegas  was  the  treas- 
urer of  Congress,  and  Pickering  was  Quartermaster-General; 
soldiers'  notes  were  the  interest-bearing  certificates  entitling 
the  army  to  their  half -pay  for  life,  or  to  full  pay  for  five  years  ; 
and  State  money  meant  the  outstanding  bills  of  credit  or  paper 
money  issued  in  the  early  years  of  the  war  by  the  State  govern- 
ment, at  convenient  denominations,  from  two  pence  to  two 
pounds.  By  cash  was  meant  at  that  date,  before  Gouverneur 
Morris's  system  of  decimal  currency  (which  we  now  use)  had 
been  adopted  by  Congress,  and  a  mint  set  up,  a  miscellaneous 
foreign  coinage,  mainly  English  and  Spanish,  with  a  few 
coppers  of  local  origin  ;  it  was  through  familiarity  with  the 
Spanish  currency,  that  the  term  dollar  was  already  in  general 
use. 

Socially,  the  characteristics  of  New  Haven  were  much  the 
same  as  throughout  New  England.  The  population  was  still 
of  pure  English  descent,  and  a  homely  familiarity  of  inter- 
course prevailed ;  while  the  adventuring  spirit  of  commercial 
life,  traversing  the  seas,  tended  to  widen  views,  and  the 
presence  of  the  College  was  felt  as  a  cultivating  influence, 
bringing  hither  a  constant  succession  of  intelligent  and  famous 
visitors.  The  specially  cold  winter  of  1783-4  was  not  a 
favorable  season  for  travel,  but  President  Stiles's  diary  records 
the  entertainment,  among  others,  of  Major  General  John 
Sullivan,  of  New  Hampshire,  of  Mr.  Gay,  a  son  of  the  poet,  of 
Ira  Allen,  a  brother  of  Ethan  Allen,  and  one  of  the  founders 
of  Yermont,  and  of  John  Ledyard,  the  distinguished  traveler. 

I  have  not  time  to  dwell  on  details  of  the  social  life  of  a 


NEW    HAVEN    IN    1784.  65 

century  ago  :  if  it  was  not  the  hurried  and  feverish  life  of  the 
present,  no  more  was  it  the  ascetic  and  constrained  life  of  a 
century  earlier;  there  was  abundance  of  gaiety  of  a  simple 
sort ;  and  the  shopkeepers  publish  prompt  advertisements  of 
the  arrival  of  fresh  invoices  of  "  gentlemen  and  ladies'  dancing- 
gloves  for  the  City  Assembly,"  of  "  chip-hats  of  the  newest 
taste,"  of  "  new  figured,  fashionable  cotton  chintz  and  calicoes, 
proper  for  ladies'  winter  dress,"  of  "  elegant  figured  shauls," 
of  "  ladies'  tiffany  balloon  hats,"  and  so  on  ad  injvnitum, — 
showing  that  human  nature  had  the  same  kind  of  interest  then 
as  now. 

As  one  part  of  their  social  life,  we  must  remember  this  as 
the  time  when  domestic  slavery  was  general  in  New  Haven. 
The  importing  of  slaves  was  forbidden  since  1774,  but  the 
papers  have  occasional,  not  frequent  advertisements  for  the 
sale  of  likely  negroes,  or  it  may  be  a  family  of  negroes,  in 
respect  to  whom  "  a  good  title  will  be  given  ;"  sometimes  it  is 
for  a  term  of  years  (perhaps  till  the  attainment  of  legal 
majority,  when  by  the  will  of  some  former  owner  freedom 
was  to  be  given),  and  sometimes  it  is  noted  that,  in  the  lack  of 
ready  money,  rum  and  sugar  will  be  taken  in  part  payment. 
The  relations  of  masters  and  slaves  were  in  most  cases  here  the 
best  possible ;  yet  sensible  men  were  uneasy  under  the  incon- 
sistency of  the  system,  and  President  Stiles  writes  in  his  diary, 
in  December,  1783:  "The  constant  annual  importation  of 
negroes  into  America  and  the  West  Indies  is  supposed  to  have 
been  of  late  years  about  60,000.  Is  it  possible  to  think  of  this 
without  horror  ?" 

I  pass  on  to  the  special  circumstances  which  made  New 
Haven  a  city. 

The  origin  of  the  movement  it  may  be  difficult  to  trace. 
Certainly  we  cannot  adopt  the  earliest  date  that  has  been 
assigned  for  such  an  origin ;  for  that  would  commit  us  to  the 
9 


66  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW    HAVEN. 

acceptance  of  a  statement  by  the  notoriously  inaccurate  Samuel 
Peters,  who  in  giving  in  his  History  of  Connecticut  (1781)  the 
story  of  the  Phantom  Ship,  which  sailed  from  this  port  in 
1647,  says  that  she  carried  a  request  for  a  patent  for  the 
colony  and  for  a  charter  for  the  city  of  New  Haven  ;  this  part 
of  his  tale  is  a  pure  fabrication. 

The  first  step  which  I  can  fix  in  the  genealogy  of  the 
charter  is  a  vote  in  town-meeting,  December  9,  1771,  in  these 
words :  "  Whereas  a  motion  was  made  to  the  town  that  this 
town  might  have  the  privileges  of  a  city,  and  that  proper  meas- 
ures might  be  taken  to  obtain  the  same,  it  is  thereupon  Voted 
that  Roger  Sherman  "  [and  seventeen  others]  "  be  a  Committee 
to  take  the  same  into  consideration  and  judge  of  the  motion 
what  is  best  for  the  town  to  do  with  regard  to  the  same  and 
report  thereupon  to  the  town  at  another  town-meeting."  This 
committee  never  reported,  so  far  as  the  records  show,  nor  do 
the  public  prints  of  the  day  refer  to  the  matter.  Roger  Sher- 
man, the  chairman,  then  fifty  years  old,  and  for  ten  years  a 
resident  of  New  Haven,  was  already  eminent  in  the  regards  of 
his  fellow-townsmen,  a  Judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas, 
and  a  member  of  the  Governor's  Council,  or  Upper  House  of 
the  Assembly,  though  still  keeping  a  small  country-store  oppo- 
site the  College  on  Chapel  street. 

Ten  years  passed  without  further  sign,  until  in  December, 
1781,  the  town  was  obliged  to  take  cognizance  of  efforts  which 
had  lately  been  gathering  strength,  for  the  creation  of  new 
towns  from  the  more  distant  parts  of  New  Haven.  At  a 
town-meeting  of  this  date,  a  committee  was  therefore  appointed 
to  report  a  plan  for  the  division  of  the  town  into  several 
distinct  townships;  and  this  committee  reported  the  same 
month  in  favor  of  setting  off  the  portions  which  afterwards 
became  Woodbridge,  East  Haven,  and  North  Haven.  These 
towns  were  not  in  fact  incorporated  until  after  the  city  of 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1784.  67 

New  Haven  ;  but  the  one  movement  was  a  complement  of  the 
other. 

At  the  close  of  the  Revolution  the  two  most  prosperous 
centers  of  population  in  this  country  were  Philadelphia,  with 
nearly  30,000  inhabitants,  and  New  York,  with  a  little  under 
25,000.  Both  were  cities :  New  York  having  received  a 
charter  from  James  II.  in  1686,  during  the  spasm  of  liberal 
zeal  which  marked  the  beginning  of  his  reign ;  and  Philadel- 
phia having  been  similarly  endowed  in  1701  by  the  proprietor 
of  Pennsylvania,  the  ardent  friend  and  quondam  political 
mentor  of  James  II.  Besides  these,  I  do  not  recall  any  other 
incorporated  cities  in  the  Union  at  this  date,  except  Albany, 
which  was  chartered  at  the  same  time  and  under  the  same 
circumstances  as  New  York,  but  was  now  of  less  population 
than  New  Haven,  and  Richmond,  incorporated  in  1782,  but 
only  a  small  village  in  point  of  numbers. 

The  prosperity  and  size  of  Philadelphia  and  New  York 
were,  however,  objects  of  emulation  ;  and  there  is  some  evi- 
dence that  it  was  from  an  ambition  of  rivaling  their  prominence, 
that  a  charter  was  desired  for  New  Haven.  This  may  have  been 
especially  in  view  of  the  long  occupation  of  New  York  by  the 
British,  and  a  consequent  interruption  of  the  previous  depen- 
dence of  our  dealers  on  New  York  merchants  for  imports  from 
England  and  for  the  return  of  remittances  thither ;  New  York 
had  just  been  evacuated,  and  might  not  the  two  places  begin 
new  careers  more  on  an  equality,  if  New  Haven  were  elevated 
to  the  dignity  of  a  city  ? 

To  recur  to  President  Stiles's  diary,  we  have  this  entry  on 
October  20,  1783:  "Sign'd  a  petition  to  the  Assembly  for 
incorporating  New  Haven  as  a  city."  The  Assembly  was  then 
holding  its  regular  fall  session  in  New  Haven,  and  so  continued 
until  November  1,  when  it  adjourned  to  meet  again  in  January 
in  a  special  session,  for  the  purpose  of  revising  the  laws  of 


68  CEXTEXXIAL  OP  NEW   HAVEN. 

the  State.  The  October  session  was  made  memorable  by  the 
announcement  of  Governor  TrumbulFs  determination  to  retire 
from  public  life  at  the  next  election,  on  account  of  his  advanced 
age  (73). 

The  petition  referred  to  by  Dr.  Stiles  is  on  file  (with  214 
signatures)  in  the  State  Library.  It  bases  the  desired  action 
on  the  hindrances  to  an  extension  of  commerce,  which  ''  arise 
for  want  of  a  due  regulation  of _  the  internal  police"  of  the 
town.  Specifically,  "it  is  matter  of  no  small  importance  that 
wharves,  streets  and  highways,  be  commodious  for  business, 
and  kept  continually  in  good  repair ;"  and  such  a  result  can- 
not be  attained,  unless  the  memorialists  have  a  jurisdiction  of 
their  own.  Hence  the  petition,  that  the  inhabitants  within 
specified  limits  "  be  made  a  corporation,"  with  power  to  enact 
by-laws,  and  that  a  Court  be  constituted  for  the  same  jurisdic- 
tion. A  bill  brought  in  in  accordance  with  this  petition  was 
passed  at  the  same  session  by  the  Upper  House ;  but  the 
Lower  House  insisted  that  it  be  referred  to  the  adjourned 
session  for  their  consideration,  and  it  was  so  referred. 

On  the  21st  of  November,  Dr.  Stiles  writes :  "Examining 
the  Act  or  Charter  proposed  for  the  City  of  New  Haven." 
This  interval  of  examination  resulted  in  making  the  final  draft 
of  the  charter  quite  different  in  details  from  that  presented  in 
October. 

The  Assembly  was  to  meet  in  New  Haven  on  Thursday, 
January  8,  1784 ;  and  on  Monday,  January  5,  at  a  town-meet- 
ing, with  Roger  Sherman  in  the  chair,  a  resolution  was  passed, 
"  requesting  the  representatives  in  the  Assembly,"  who  were 
Captain  Henry  Daggett  and  Captain  Jesse  Ford,  "to  exert 
themselves  that  the  Act  for  incorporating  a  part  of  the  town 
be  passed  with  all  convenient  speed." 

Owing  to  unusually  bad  traveling,  the  adjourned  session 
did  not  open  until  Tuesday,  January  13.  The  presiding  officer 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1734.  69 

of  the  Upper  House  was  His  Excellency  Governor  Jonathan 
Trumbull,  of  Lebanon,  who,  as  was  his  custom,  lodged  at  the 
house  of  President  Stiles ;  while  the  Speaker  of  the  Lower 
House  was  the  Hon.  Colonel  William  Williams,  also  of  Leb- 
anon, well  known  as  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  1776. 

As  usual,  all  Acts  passed  by  the  Assembly  are  dated  as  of 
the  first  day  of  the  session,  and  as  usual  the  weekly  newspapers 
give  none  of  the  interesting  details  of  legislative  proceedings ; 
so  that  it  is  only  from  the  unprinted  pages  of  Dr.  Stiles's  Lit- 
erary Diary  that  we  gain  the  exact  knowledge  of  the  day  when 
the  charter  was  finally  passed. 

The  next  week's  Connecticut  Journal,  however,  contains 
the  notification  of  the  first  meeting  of  the  city,  to  be  held  on 
February  10;  and  in  the  Journal  of  February  4  appears  an 
advertisement  by  the  selectmen  of  the  town,  announcing  that, 
in  accordance  with  a  paragraph  in  the  act  of  incorporation  of 
the  city,  an  opportunity  will  be  given  on  Thursday,  February 
5,  for  any  who  are  qualified  to  become  freemen  of  the  State, 
but  have  not  yet  taken  the  freeman's  oath,  to  appear  and  be 
admitted,  so  as  to  participate  in  the  first  city  election. 

On  the  day  appointed,  Dr.  Stiles  was  among  those  taking 
the  oath  ;  and  he  records  that  the  total  number  in  the  city 
who  are  qualified  to  become  freemen,  as  now  certified  by  the 
selectmen,  is  three  hundred  and  forty-three,  of  whom  fifty-five 
(about  one-sixth)  are  college  graduates ;  eighty-two  of  the 
three  hundred  and  forty-three  (about  one-fourth)  have  not 
taken  the  freeman's  oath, — some  being  absent,  some  disabled, 
some  indifferent.  The  full  list,  which  he  appends,  is  of  great 
interest,  and  might  instructively  be  compared,  on  the  one  hand, 
writh  the  roll  of  original  planters,  in  1640,  and  on  the  other  hand 
with  the  roll  of  our  voters  to-day.  In  1784  the  families  most 
largely  represented  in  the  voting  population  were,  Austin  (a 
name  introduced  in  the  generation  after  the  settlement,  not 


70  CENTENNIAL   OF  NEW   HAVEN. 

among  the  first-comers)  and  Trowbridge,  the  name  which  has 
multiplied  beyond  any  other  in  the  original  company ;  next 
followed  Atwater,  Bishop,  Hotchkiss,  Munson,  Bradley,  Mix, 
Thompson,  and  Townsend. 

Dr.  Stiles  further  judges  that  there  were  about  six  hundred 
adult  males  living  within  the  city  limits,  showing  that  nearly 
every  other  man  was  disfranchised,  either  by  the  operation  of 
the  qualification  limiting  suffrage  to  those  holding  real  estate 
which  would  yield  a  rental  of  £2  per  annum,  or  personal 
estate  worth  £40,  or  else  disfranchised  by  their  loyalty  to  Great 
Britain  in  the  late  war. 

The  election  of  city  officers  was  appointed  for  February  10  ; 
and  as  the  General  Assembly  was  still  in  session,  the  third 
story  of  the  State  House  wras  the  place  of  meeting.  Of  the 
261  freemen  who  had  qualified,  over  250,  says  Dr.  Stiles, 
attended  at  the  opening  of  the  polls,  but  only  249  votes  were 
recorded  on  the  first  ballot,  that  for  mayor ;  of  these  just  the 
number  necessary  for  a  choice,  125,  were  cast  for  Roger  Sher- 
man, 102  for  Deacon  Thomas  Howell,  and  22  for  Thomas 
Darling. 

Mr.  Sherman  was  now  in  his  63d  year,  and  was  unquestion- 
ably the  most  distinguished  resident  of  the  new  city.  That  he 
did  not  carry  a  larger  vote  may  have  been  due  to  his  personal 
characteristics;  that  aristocratic,  chilling  reserve  of  manner 
which  his  juniors  have  reported  of  him,  may  well  have  stood 
in  the  way  of  popularity.  Moreover,  there  were  undercurrents 
of  feeling,  as  we  shall  see,  that  would  have  prevented  a  cordial 
uniting  on  any  one.  It  is  an  evidence  of  Mr.  Sherman's 
acknowledged  merits  that  at  the  time  of  this  election  he  was 
absent,  in  Annapolis,  where  he  had  been  for  a  month  in  attend- 
ance as  a  member  of  Congress,  which  had  migrated  south- 
wards, pending  the  expected  establishment  of  a  capital  near 
the  falls  of  the  Potomac. 


NEW   HAVEN    IN    1784.  71 

* 

Sherman's  chief  competitor  for  the  mayoralty,  Deacon 
Howell  of  the  First  Church,  now  in  his  65th  year,  was  chosen 
Senior  Alderman,  and  thus  in  the  Mayor's  absence  became  the 
active  head  of  the  government ;  it  is  remarkable  that  neither 
of  the  two  was  of  old  New  Haven  stock,  Sherman  being  a 
native  of  Massachusetts,  and  Ho  well's  father  having  immi- 
grated from  Long  Island. 

The  other  aldermen  were  Samuel  Bishop,  previously  iden- 
tified with  the  town-clerk's  office  for  forty  years,  and  brought 
into  wide  notoriety  at  the  end  of  his  long  life  as  President 
Jefferson's  appointee  to  the  collectorship  of  the  port ;  Deacon 
David  Austin,  of  the  White  Haven  Church  ;  and  Isaac  Beers, 
the  bookseller.  The  interest  in  the  election  of  twenty  common 
councilmen,  which  was  not  completed  till  the  third  day, 
dwindled  so  rapidly  that  the  total  number  of  votes  for  the  last 
places  was  only  about  one  hundred.  At  the  conclusion  of  the 
election  (February  12)  all  the  new  officials  except  the  absent 
mayor  were  sworn  in,  and  the  city  government  was  finally 
organized. 

Dr.  Stiles's  valuable  diary  gives  an  inside  view  of  the 
election,  under  date  of  February  13,  when  he  says  :  "  The  city 
politics  are  founded  in  an  endeavor'  silently  to  bring  Tories 
into  an  equality  and  supremacy  among  the  Whigs.  The 
Episcopalians  are  all  Tories  but  two,  and  all  qualified  on  this 
occasion,  though  despising  Congress  government  before  ;  they 
may  perhaps  be  forty  voters.  There  may  be  twenty  or  thirty 
of  Mr.  Whittelsey's  meeting  added  to  the~se.  Perhaps  one- 
third  of  the  citizens,"  that  is,  I  suppose,  one-third  of  the  261 
who  had  taken  the  freeman's  oath,  "may  be  hearty  Tories, 
one-third  Whigs,  and  one-third  indifferent.  Mixing  all  up 
together,  the  election  has  come  out,  Mayor  and  two  Aldermen, 
Whigs ;  two  Aldermen,  Tories.  Of  the  Common  Council, 
five  Whigs,  five  flexibles  but  in  heart  Whigs,  eight  Tories. 


72  CENTENNIAL   OF   NEW   HAVEN. 

The  two  Sheriffs,"  Elias  Stilwell  and  Parsons  Clark,  "and 
Treasurer,"  Hezekiah  Sabin,  "Whigs;  the  first  Sheriff  firm, 
the  other  flexible." 

From  these  hints  it  would  appear  that  the  so-called  "Tory" 
element  had  been  concerned  in  the  entire  movement  for  a 
charter.  I  may  add  that  at  a  meeting  held  on  March  8,  on 
the  motion  of  Pierpont  Edwards,  a  committee  of  eight  was 
appointed,  "  to  consider  of  the  propriety  and  expediency  of 
admitting  as  inhabitants  of  this  town  persons  who  in  the 
course  of  the  late  war  have  adhered  to  the  cause  of  Great 
Britain  against  these  United  States,  and  are  of  fair  characters, 
and  will  be  good  and  useful  members  of  society  and  faithful 
citizens  of  this  State."  In  their  report,  made  the  same  day, 
this  committee  deduced  from  the  independence  of  the  several 
States  and  the  spirit  of  peace  and  philanthropy  displayed  in 
the  "  Recommendations "  of  Congress  based  on  the  treaty  of 
peace,  that  it  was  in  point  of  law  proper  to  admit  such  as 
are  above  described,  but  not  any  who  were  guilty  of  unauthor- 
ized plundering  and  murder.  As  for  expediency,  they  sug- 
gested that  no  nation  is  truly  great  unless  it  is  also  distin- 
guished for  justice  and  magnanimity ;  and  argued  that  it 
would  be  magnanimous  to  restore  these  persons,  and  especially 
that  the  commercial  future  of  New  Haven  made  it  desirable 
thus  to  increase  its  inhabitants.  The  report  was  at  once 
accepted  and  approved  by  the  town.  Such  an  ardent  patriot 
as  Dr.  Stiles  dismisses  the  unpalatable  theme  with  this  curt 
entry  in  his  diary  :  "  This  day  town-meeting  voted  to  re-admit 
the  Tories." 

b 

The  question  of  the  treatment  of  the  loyalists  had  for 
months  previous  been  under  heated  discussion  all  over  the 
Union  ;  and  not  least  in  New  Haven,  where  the  argument  was 
strongly  urged  that  a  sound  commercial  policy  dictated  the 
invitation  hither  of  some  of  the  numerous  gentlemen  of  large 


NEW   HAVEN   IN   1784.  T3 

property  and  influential  connections  in  business,  who  had  been 
dislodged  from  their  homes  and  would  gladly  begin  life  anew 
among  a  congenial  people.  Attempts  had  been  made  to  mould 
public  opinion  by  newspaper  appeals  ;  and  twice  or  thrice  with 
special  ingenuity  by  printing  extracts  from  letters  said  to  have 
been  received  from  friends  in  Europe  ;  one  such,  for  instance, 
in  the  Journal  of  January  7,  represented  that  Dr.  Franklin 
and  Mr.  Jay,  now  abroad  for  the  negotiation  of  peace,  were 
much  hurt  at  the  harsh  measures  adopted  toward  loyalists.  By 
such  means  and  by  more  direct  arguments,  the  way  was  quietly 
prepared  for  a  popular  amnesty,  which  was  thus  voted  in 
March,  1784,  just  a  year  after  a  former  town-meeting,  when 
the  New  Haven  representatives  were  solemnly  instructed  by 
their  constituents  "  to  use  their  influence  with  the  next  General 
Assembly  in  an 'especial  manner,  to  prevent  the  return  of  any 
of  those  miscreants  who  have  deserted  their  country's  cause 
and  joined  the  enemies  of  this  and  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, during  their  late  contest :" — a  striking  instance  of  rapid 
conversion. 

I  add  before  closing  a  reference  to  two  peculiar  provisions 
of  the  charter.  It  was  enacted  that  the  mayor's  tenure  of 
office  should  be  "during  the  pleasure  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly," which  was  equivalent  to  a  life  appointment,  and  so  proved 
in  practice ;  for  Mayor  Sherman  retained  the  position  until 
his  death  in  1793,  when  Samuel  Bishop  succeeded,  continuing 
till  his  death  in  1803 ;  the  third  incumbent,  Elizur  Goodrich, 
held  office  till  his  resignation  in  1822,  and  his  successor, 
George  Hoadly,  till  his  resignation  in  1826,  when  by  vote  of 
the  city  a  request  was  preferred  to  the  Assembly,  which 
resulted  in  the  substitution  of  an  annual  election. 

Another  provision  of  the  charter  which  needs  comment  is 
the  proclamation  that  power  is  conferred  on  the  city  to 
exchange  the  upper  part  of  the  Green,  west  of  the  line  of  the 
10 


74  CENTEXXLM,    OF   NEW    HAVEN. 

churches,  for  other  land,  for  highways,  or  another  green  else- 
where. I  do  not  know  that  auy  exchange  was  ever  proposed 
or  attempted ;  but  the  insertion  in  the  charter  of  express 
authority  for  the  purpose,  was  perhaps  meant  to  intimate  that 
the  city  had  the  State  government  at  its  back  in  asserting 
authority  over  the  public  green,  as  against  the  claims  preferred 
by  the  "  Proprietors  of  Common  and  Undivided  Lands  in 
New  Haven."* 

The  city  government  thus  organized  was  immediately  put 
into  operation.  The  example  was  contagious  ;  ]^ew  London 
asked  for  and  received  a  city  charter  at  the  same  session  of  the 
legislature,  and  Hartford,  ^Norwich,  and  Middletown,  at  the 
succeeding  one.  It  was  the  era  of  upbuilding  and  of  prepara- 
tion,— they  hardly  knew  for  what ;  yet  we  may  doubt  if  in 
their  proudest  dreams  the  citizens  of  1784  anticipated  the 
growth  which  has  come  to  pass.  Certainly  we  know  that 
public  sentiment  had  been  incredulous,  when  Dr.  Stiles  in  the 
last  election  sermon  had  announced  it  u  probable  that  within 
a  century  from  our  independence  the  sun  will  shine  on  fifty 
millions  of  inhabitants  in  the  United  States."  But  the  century 
has  gone  by  ;  and  the  prophecy  has  very  little  exceeded  the 
truth.  We  can  at  least  learn  the  lesson,  not  to  underrate  the 
progress  which  is  possible  in  the  century  to  come,  knowing 
that  the  present  is  as  full  of  fruit  and  of  promise  as  the  past, 
and  that  the  resistless  tide  of  time  which  sweeps  down  individ- 
uals and  generations  in  its  '•  ceaseless  current,"  only  enlarges 
and  deepens  the  hold  of  institutions  which  subserve  useful 
ends  and  are  wisely  and  justly  administered. 

*  As  an  instance  of  these  claims  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  loca- 
tion of  the  Fair  Haven  meeting-house  (represented  at  present  by 'the 
United  Church)  on  the  Green  in  1770  was  by  a  vote  of  the  ' '  Proprietors. " 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

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LOS  ANGELES,  CALIFORNIA  90095-1388 

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